The Unbreakable Vow
by Alex Bailey Fairy Godmother
Summary: Hermione has to do the unthinkable. She has to obliviate her parents and her best Muggle friend Darcie. But can the brightest witch of our generation find another way?


Hermione sighed as she shut the _Daily Prophet _that had arrived that morning. Just more rabble about Voldemort being back and deaths of Muggles and various witches and wizards that was thought to be his doing. Ever since Dumbledore was killed last May by Sever- us Snape, she'd barely heard anything from Harry. She supposed he was in some kind of depression or something after witnessing the death of the person he most trusted. More frequent letters were from Ron, who told her about preparations for Bill and Fleur's wedding in a couple of weeks, and his charming of the family ghoul to look like him.

But Harry, Ron, and she wouldn't be lingering at the Burrow long after that. Harry had shown them the locket with the note from RAB. Hermione had written it down on a sheet of note paper and analyzed it until she thought her brain might fry. But it all came to the same: RAB had switched lockets at the last minute and planned to destroy the real Horcrux.

They'd been careful not to discuss their plans in detail, in case owls were intercepted by Voldemort and the Death Eaters. They would wait until next week, when they got Harry from Privet Drive, to discuss plans in detail.

But Hermione already had part of a plan forming in her brain for most of the summer. What about her family and Muggle friends? She'd told her parents practically everything about Harry and Ron, and Darcie almost as much as that. If they were captured and killed by Voldemort, she would never forgive herself. They would only be in that situation because of her, and she couldn't allow that.

She had a plan, for certain. What she wasn't certain of was the fact that she would be able to reverse it.

Sometimes she thought it was a mistake to tell Darcie about her being a witch. But she was gone for ten months of the year, and nothing could explain that except the truth. So she told her. At first she hadn't believed her, but then she showed her her robes, her potions ingredients, even her moving photographs of Harry and Ron.

She swore Darcie to secrecy shortly after she had told her, after their first year. Each year when she got home, Darcie would hurry to her house and demand to know everything that had gone on that year. When she'd finished, sometimes they would go out for an ice cream or something to take their minds off the troubling world of magic and mayhem.

Darcie was refreshing, an escape from the busy and chaotic wizarding world and it's politics, evil wizards, and mysterious occurences. Darcie had demanded to know every single thing, even little details, when she'd come home last summer with the news of Albus Dumbledore's death. But when she'd relayed everything that happened, she left out the part about the three of them going to hunt Horcruxes.

She observed the books she was going to take with her. _Spellman's Syllabary, Hogwarts, A History, Advanced Transfiguration, A History of Magic_, and tons more. She'd accumulated a lot of books during her six years at Hogwarts, and had performed a few magic spells for practice over the summer. Since she had turned seventeen last summer, she'd been able to perform magic without getting in trouble. She noticed one: _The Unbreakable Vow and it's Complications._ Wait a minute, Hermione thought. Maybe this will work. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it sooner! She rifled through the book, trying to find out some things. But you needed a third person to cast the spell. No good. Hermione cast the book aside frustratedly. Would she have to go through with her original plan?

Ever since she'd thought it, she'd been looking for an alternative. She still cast the spell, to make sure she could do it if the need arose. But she'd half hoped it never would. She was trying to find any other way, but time was nearly out. Tomorrow she was scheduled to arrive at the Weasleys by Floo System. No one could know, and she would have to leave all her memories behind if she was to save her friends.

She glanced at the _Daily Prophets _stacked on her desk. What a stupid woman, Rita Skeeter. But if she wanted dirt on Hermione, she could get it. Betraying everyone she knew? No one but Ron and eventually Harry would know the reason why.

She tore away from the newspapers and grabbed her knapsack, everything of use now packed inside it. She'd placed an Undetectable Extension Charm on the bag so it could hold any number of things and not get any bigger or heavier. She slipped her wand out and held it close to her side, so it wasn't visible right away. She quietly stole down the stairs, a growing thunderstorm sending loud BOOM!s through the gray sky.

In the living room, her parents were sitting watching television, the Food Channel. Mum was writing in a notebook and Dad was watching the television. Mum and Dad were dentists, but Mum dearly wanted to be a writer. She'd told Hermione that it had been her dearest wish ever since she was a little girl.

She would be taking that dream away. Not just the wanting, but the memory of ever wishing to be an authoress. Hermione would rather herself die than her parents or Darcie because she had been foolish. That gave her resolve to do what she had to do. She gripped her wand still tighter, its familiar weight small comfort in the current series of events.

"Obliviate," Hermione whispered, barely audible through her choking throat. A pale blue glow lit the tip of her wand. She twisted it in a circle, the way the books said to. Her parents eyes went blank for a moment. Hermione glanced at the photos of her and her parents around the room. Any trace of her had been removed from the photos: her and her mother at the table when Hermione was small, her and her father standing next to a ferris wheel, and separate ones of herself now plain backgrounds.

"Wendell," said her mother. "Don't you think it would be nice to move to Australia?"

"What? Oh, yes, that would be very lovely, Monica. I suppose it is a good thing we do not have a daughter, otherwise she might not want to come."

_Oh, if only that were true,_ Hermione thought. But it was unwise to linger in the house now that she technically didn't belong there. She had to talk to Darcie now.

It was lucky they ran into each other. Literally.

"Hermione!" Darcie exclaimed, helping Hermione off the pavement. "Are you okay?"

"Oh!" Hermione gasped, her back straightening. "Fine."

"Actually, I was just going to go to your house. We could find some ridiculous show to watch on television or something, what do you say?" But she caught Hermione's sad look. "What's up? Something with… _your _world?"

That's how Darcie always talked about the wizarding world. _Your _world. Not anything else. She didn't want anyone to bother her friend or ask her for potions or something, espe- cially since she wasn't allowed to do magic.

Hermione nodded. "We need to talk."

So the friends walked in silence to a deserted alley.

"Is it something bad? I know Harry's involved. Is it about Voldemort?" Darcie asked in her spitfire maner. That was what Hermione loved about Darcie. She was a constant in her ever changing world, and Hermione badly needed something that wouldn't change no matter what. Not even magic could alter their friendship. They'd been best friends ever since primary school and nothing had changed since between the two of them, except when she told Darcie about magic and all the entailments, especially Harry.

"It's bad," Hermione said. "You know how Dumbledore died, right?"

"Uh-huh. Is it about Snape?"

"Sort of. Well, Dumbledore left Harry a mission before he died," says Hermione. She gulps, anxious to get it off her chest.

"What was it?"

"Well, Voldemort created something called a Horcrux. It's a part of your soul you place in a separate object, and it is safe as long as it isn't destroyed," Hermione replies, sighing.

"Whoa. That sounds really evil. How is it made? How do you split your soul?" Darcie asks, leaning forward slightly.

"The most horrible thing you can do," Hermione answers. "Murder."

Darcie's eyes widen. "Murder? How evil must someone be to do that just to save themselves?" She stops, realizing her mistake. "Well, obviously Voldemort is. How many did he make? Just one?"

"No, Darcie," Hermione says. "Voldemort has seven Horcruxes."

"What?! He's killed seven people? Well, there's Harry's parents, that Cedric boy, uh…" Darcie loses count.

"He killed many people before Harry," Hermione whispers. "Muggles, children, parents, old men and women. He didn't care."

"Well, do you know where these Horcrux things are? Are any of them gone?" Darcie wonders.

"Well, that diary that posessed Ginny was one, but Harry destroyed it when he stabbed it with the basilisk fang. Dumbledore had a ring on when he died, and he said it was one. And there was a locket," says Hermione. "That's all we know."

"Wait, a locket. Like, the one that Dumbledore got from the poison stuff?" Darcie asks. Hermione shakes. "So the trip there was a waste of time?"

"Yes, that's what they were looking for, and yes, since it was a fake locket. Someone had switched lockets without Dumbledore knowing."

Darcie closes her eyes, thinking. She opens them. "I want to come with."

"What? No, you can't. I'm technically breaking the law telling you this. I couldn't stand it if you got hurt!" Hermione protests.

"Well, I could get hurt anyways. Voldemort knows where your family lives, and he'll read their minds and find me. Please? I've always wanted to go on an adventure!" Darcie pleads.

"I've taken care of my parents," Hermione said sadly. Darcie gives her a strange look.

"What do you mean? You mean…?"

"Yes. I did it just before I ran into you," Hermione confirms. She tole Darcie her plan. What she didn't say was that she'd be doing the same to her. "I was actually coming to find you."

Darcie smiles. "You can stay at my house for as long as you need."

Hermione sits thinking. Maybe… since her parents don't know her, they don't know Darcie. Maybe she can do the Unbreakable Vow.

"Darcie, can you do something for me?" Hermione asks.

"Anything."

"We need to make an Unbreakable Vow."

"What's that?" Darcie wonders.

"It's a spell that makes a promise between two people unbreakable," Hermione answers. "If I do it, even if you try and tell someone about me or anything, you can't."

"Let's do it," Darcie agrees. Hermione takes out her wand. "Do you, Darcie Grant, promise never to tell a soul about me or anything I have ever told you, regardless of what anyone might say to you?"

"I will," Darcie agrees. Strands of golden light circle the friends hands like vices.

"Do you promise never to do anything to hurt yourself or anyone else, no matter what anyone asks you to do?"

"I will."

The golden strands grow brighter and more substantial.

"And do you promise that if anything should happen to me, you will not avenge me or do anything to make yourself a target?"

Darcie takes a deep breath. "I will."

The golden chains grow even brighter for a moment, and then they go out completely.

"That's it?" Darcie wonders. Hermione nods, a slight smile on her lips. "What happens if you break an Unbreakable Vow?"

"Ron says you die if you break an Unbreakable Vow," Hermione answers. Darcie gulps.

"Thank you," Hermione says. "For being a friend to me." Darcie just nods. Instead of prolonging the parting, she gets up, hugs Darcie, and heads back up the alleyway.

"Where are you going to go?" Darcie calls.

"I'll go to Ron's," Hermione answers. Darcie nods. As she watches Hermione walk off, a wry smile crosses her face.

"Good luck," she calls. "Have fun?" And then, quieter, she says, "Save the world for me."


End file.
